Great article on Eggleston

[Martin Patek-Strutsky]

HERE (http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1268540,00.html) is a great article on William Eggleston. One of the few sources showing the person behind the myth.

Enjoy

[John Kasaian]

Neat article, thanks Martin!

[Ken Lee]

I confess, I've never heard of this person. Is there a site which displays some of his photographs ?

[tim atherton]

Oh I love this list Ken

He's probably the single most influential colour photogorpaher around (but a lot of Large Formaters seem to love to hate him - you'll probably hear - my cat takes better snapshots, my granny has an album full of pix like those, I throw away the ones that look like that or variations on any of those... :-) )

At it's simplest here are really just two strands of colour photography - those that follow through from Eggleston and those that try to photogorpah in colour what and how Adams photographed in black and white

A lot of his work doesn't really show well online.

try

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/E/eggleston/eggleston.html

[Ken Lee]

Thanks for the link. Frankly, I don't care much for his images either. They have a decidely queer feeling, and I prefer to be stimulated by Beauty, even if it comes through more faintly. To each his own, of course.



I have to admit, I prefer my own attempts to capture "modern times". But as I said, I try to convey a sense of beauty, rather than the queerness... even if it comes through rather faintly.



http://www.kenleegallery.com/cones.jpg

[MattO]

A perfect example of "critics" creating the personna......

A totally talentless and uninspired man with connections (and money) to create a career.

[Martin_4452]

Would offer a dinner with Ansel Adams for a break for a smoke with Eggleston.

[Walter Foscari]

In b&w there's Atget and W. Evans and in color there's Shore and Eggleston. For me that's all I need. Great article Martin.

[tim atherton]

I'd pick the same four, but even then Walter, Evans derived from Atget and was hugely influenced by him (so much so, that at one point he even denied having been exposed to Atget very early on, saying he saw Abbot's Atget prints and negatives in the late 20's early 30's and they terrified him - even though it was a matter of record) and to a large extent, without Eggleston, Shore may not really have been able to do what he has done.

When you think about it, there are very few photogorpahers who have such a huge impact that they change the direction of photogrpahy. Atget is certainly one. Eggleston is definately another - without him we'd probably still be stuck in a sort of awful colour pictorialism - as Weston put it "Pretty stories, poorly told". It really is hard to imagine a huge amount of the colour work done today (as well as some of the best movies) without the initial influence of Eggleston. He's certainly a one off.

[Bill_1856]

One must consider an artist within the parameters of his own time. Eggleston's work is totally boring without the addition of a little weed or acid to make them interesting./

[tim atherton]

Crikey - what am I going to need to be on to be able to look at those old Ansel Adams and Elliot Porter calendars my mum used to send every Xmas? Opium? LSD?

:-)

[Martin Patek-Strutsky]

Tim, couldn't agree more with what you said above. The older I get the more I get the opinion that everything relevant today goes back to Atget and Eggleston.

BTW do you know of current writers sharing this opinion? Haven't heard of Atget and Eggleston for some time. It looks like nobody has the courage to follow in Szarkowskis footsteps...

[tim atherton]

Martin,

I don't think there is anything as significant as Szarkowskis writings - really more that just adds to it in one way or another. There is a steady stream of generally good (and some not quite as good) books of Atget's work.

The Szarkowski/Homburg 4 volume MOMA set is still one of the best (and harder to find) along with Szarkowskis one volume "Atget" - which is a wonderful piece of photogrpahic writing - in many ways as much about Szarkowski as Atget... And at the other end of the Atget as original/surreal/photogrpahic genius spectrum you have Molly Nesbitt with Atget as craftsman/journeyman/commercial photographer. Most stuff falls between those two views.

There is the thick Hazan "brick" of Atget's Paris - just a wonderful dense collection of his work (makes a great doorstop...). There is also the nice little Phaidon 55 book - pack a couple of those and a couple of small books of poetry and you are set for any long train journey or wait in an airport. The Phaidon book has quite a nice essay. Then there are new books of things like Atget's photographs of decorative architectural details, or Atget the Pioneer - which follows through his influence in Evans, Friedlander et al. There was also a new book Atget - Unknown Paris. Some on here didn't like it. It's a bit dry, but what it does is collate his negatives and follows through about half a dozen of his photogrpahic projects, so you see how he actually worked a location. As a working photographer, I found it was fascinating seeing how he worked on his projects, rather than just seeing the usual one or two well known shots from something. Reminded me a bit of the little book Walker Evans At Work (though that has much more Evans documantary details in it - notebooks etc)

+ there is the remaindered reprint of the book on Atget/Abbott

There is also the book of Atget's Trees - which work has always fascinated me, but it costs a fortune and an Atget expert friend checked it out and found it disappointing

[Martin Patek-Strutsky]

Have Szarkowskis one volume Atget in my book shelf. Definitely one of the best books I know of.

I try to find writings exploring the connecting lines between Atget, Eggleston and todays photography. But not much success up to now.

[adrian tyler]

getting back on topic, i can understand why many on this forum resent eggleston, i mean he just wonders around with a little leica photographing whatever and whenever he feels like it freely, no constraints whatsoever, looks and feels pretty idilic life to me, and to add insult to injury he has become a "hero of photography".

complete opposite to lugging a 4x5 or 8x10 into the field, following in the vision of the "greats" to national parks, carefully measuring light, detail, composition, the zone rule book, and all with absolutly no recognition whatsoever for all the suffering.

tell you whos shoes i'd rather be in...

[Bob._3483]

When the Ansel Adams at 100 exhibition was on in London, a large Eggleston exhibition was on the next floor. An interesting, if somewhat strange, juxtaposition...

Eggleston got much better gallery lighting...

Cheers,

[Julian_3496]

Actually Adrian, he hasn't used a leica for a while. His last published 'new' work was a project in Japan and he used fuji 6x9 for that, his graceland book was a mamiya RZ. He's also shot stuff with a hassy and a pentax. He worked on the idea of making pics where all the elements of form and colour combined to make images that were about more than the subject, he called them 'democratic' pics, hence his 'democratic forest' book. Interesting that Huger Foote (whose last project was shot on 8x10) had lessons from both Friedlander and Egg.

[QT Luong]

Can someone explain in a few paragraphs why Eggleston's work is so great and important, and what would be a good monograph to be introduced to his work ? After hearing about him on this forum, I went to the bookstore intend on picking at least a copy of one of his books, but after spending maybe half an hour there, I did not find anything that appealled to me. I for sure work in the Adams tradition, but I have thoroughly enjoyed color work by photographers such as Misrach, Struth, and Gursky.

[Julian_3496]

I'm afraid I'm one of those who thinks AAs work is technically perfect, but in the main, boring. I'm aware that this is a minority opinion on this forum and the only reason I say this is that I think Eggs works is the total opposite of AA. Egg tries to find beauty in a walk down the street, he tries to show you colours and forms that you may miss in the everyday and he reminds you that beauty isn't in a national park but in your own living room, and is available to anyone with the eyes to see. Like most photographic forms, the best way to try and 'get it' is to try it yourself, so grab a camera and try and show what you see in a one block radius. As to books 'Ancient and Modern' I like (bad printing though) as it has some landscapes as well as the urban stuff, the catalogue for the last retro, 'William Eggleston'.The Huger Foote 'my friend from memphis' has a great essay by egg which explains his aesthetic.

[Bill_1856]

Tuan: in the "old" photography, the photographer would see an event/image which was interesting enough to be photographed, and compose his picture in such a manner to "spoon feed" the viewer the relevance of the image. In the "new" photography, the photographer sees an event/image which is sufficiently interesting to him to make the picture, but it is composed (or actually NOT composed) to allow or force the viewer to make of it what is important, either visually or intellectually. This calls for much more sophisticated viewing than most of us old-timers are capable of -- presumably developed by growing up on TV and watching the quirky montage of current action movies. Eggleston was the first recognized photographer to work in this manner, at least in color. His appeal is to a more visually sophisticated generation than ours.

[Ken Lee]

"I'm afraid I'm one of those who thinks AAs work is technically perfect, but in the main, boring."



I agree.that much of AA's work is a little stiff and unimaginative. On the other hand, his visual "content" is often dependant on subtle tonalities, which don't come across in books, but only in the original prints.



"Egg tries to find beauty in a walk down the street..."



I'm not sure that beauty is what attracts him. He seems preoccupied with things ordinary, unfortunate, and mildly repulsive.

http://www.kenleegallery.com/eggleston_gun.jpg



To each his own.

[adrian tyler]

qt luong: my favorite eggleston monograph is "the democratic forest" it may need a few "listens", like one o f those new records that you don't like at first but after a while it "grows" on you (if you'll excuse the pun)...

[Ken Lee]

" His appeal is to a more visually sophisticated generation than ours."



I am from that generation, and I know the work of other photographers of similar taste. They merely point a camera at something distasteful.



The "visually sophisticated" audience reacts in kind: "Yo Dude - You've got to see this guys's stuff. It's like SO weird". To which I answer, in the "new" vernacular: "Yo Dude !".

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

This calls for much more sophisticated viewing than most of us old-timers are capable of -- presumably developed by growing up on TV and watching the quirky montage of current action movies.



Isn't he also an "old timer"? I have not seen his prints in person, but what I have seen in the web, he lacks the HCB "definitive" moment and I thought the prints were rather ordinary in content.

[Julian_3496]

Jorge, He really isn't well represented on the web apart from his older work. He's obsessive about his prints. he's bought up a lot of the old stock of the kodak dye transfer print materials so he can get the prints he likes (something which those who use amidol/azo should feel sympathy with I think!), although the Japanese stuff was lightjet and sumptious. He's not in the HCB mould and you won't find a decisive moment. There's an old pic of a girl in a green dress with a field in the background. Even though the bg and subject are in green, there is a tonal conflict set up.Its an essay in green at a time when art photographers weren't seeing in colour. The Japanese stuff is to die for. There's a pic of some flowers in a basket, (p147 of the retrospective catalogue) they move from white through to purple and every pink/red tone in between. there is a pink line of tiles in the lh bg which echoes one of the flower tones exactly. He does a similar trick with blues in a shot of some fish in a fish tank Ken, no one I've read commenting on Egg, or Egg's writing himself talks about 'weirdness', or adopts a dismissive 'yo dude' tone, one liners are easy but engaging with something you find difficult is much harder. I could recomend some books by Adorno or Gadamer (Gadamer's 'the relevance of the beautiful' in particular) which equate the ultimate artistic experience is when you struggle to find in meaning in a work you initially don't understand. Its the difference between 'entertainment' and 'art'. Wierdness implies that there is a 'normalcy' which we all subscribe to, instead of seeing the world as a complex place with an infinite number of viewpoints for the photographer to investigate.

[adrian tyler]

often things which i find difficult or challenging are easy to dismiss as "rubbish" but i feel that it is a negative posture to adopt. but i find it worthwile (especially for a photographer with so many permutations to explore) to maintain an open attitude towards "different" work, it may require time and indeed may never come, but for me it's worth the effort to "see" new work.

www.adriantyler.net

[tim atherton]

QT

there are a whole bunch of good links here on the Conscientious Photoweblog

http://coincidences.typepad.com/

including to his influence on film maklers etc.

BTW - there are several photoweblogs I keep track of which regualry provide stimulating input...

http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/

http://www.circant.com/expose/

http://punctum.typepad.com/

etc

[tim atherton]

QT - Egglestons newish website - lots of info, including articles and forwards from his books etc

http://egglestontrust.com/